This Kindle blog of Kindle Fire, Paperwhite, and other e-Ink Kindle tips and Kindle news - with links to Free Kindle Books (contemporary also) - explores the less-known capabilities of the Amazon Kindle readers and tablets. Ongoing tutorials, guides for little-known features and latest information on the Kindle Fire tablets and their competitors. Questions are welcome in Comments area.
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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Both are user-photos, rather than official marketing photos. Click on either image to see more.

Several updates since Original Posting on May 30.

NOOK SIMPLE TOUCH AND KINDLE 3 FEATURES
In responding to articles or comments at the NY Times and the Amazon Kindle Forum, I included some information I had gathered, and I'm including a copy below of essentially what I posted to the Kindle forum. I'll try to do something in easier-to-read format later.

Barnes and Noble's claim to a 2-mo. battery charge when Wireless is Off (Nook Touch and Kindle are the same for WiFi On, they said) was stated to be based on 1/2 hr of reading per day or 3.5 hrs reading a week. I would not say this stat was based on those who are avid readers.

The Kindle (as reported by some columns) has long been based on 1 hour of reading per day or 7 hours a week.

There's been a lot of press on this and then a bit of pique by Barnes and Noble when Amazon changed its battery-charge marketing claim to "up to two months" if basing it on the same, only-1/2 hour a day as B&N does, which makes sense. Barnes and Noble complained mightily that their testing of the Nook Simple Touch with Wireless Off showed a longer battery time for the Nook, regardless. Both companies have now included wording to the effect that it all depends on how you use the device. Those who need to sync their devices between the e-reader and smart phones and who download newspapers and magazines regularly (on either reader) will need Wireless On more.

However, in order to get the Touch screen technology for e-Ink, B&N apparently felt they had to cut some features that the older e-Ink Nooks had. Here's the list (mildly edited) that I made for a forum response at Amazon's Kindle forums, on the Kindle 3 with Special Offers ($164) topic question re a comparison with the Nook, and you can check the B&N Comparison chart for NookColor and Nook, used as a reference for the post. I've added some bold-facing here to try to make things clearer on a long piece.

' -- 1a. The "3G" Kindle has 3G cellphone network access and you can look up things on the web almost anywhere you are, at any time.
-- 1b. The new Nook Touch does not have '3G' web access. You have to find a local WiFi Network or hotspot to download your book.

-- 2a. The Kindle has a web browser that can read web articles in "Article Mode" concentrating on the article, with a cleaner layout..
You can use the web browser to look up things on the Web/Net with no monthly or hourly charges.
-- 2b. The new Nook Touch has no web browser, not even in WiFi mode. The old Nook had a decent one to use with WiFi though not with its 3G model, which was limited to the company store.

Update - The "hidden" web browser, discovered when using a web URL with the search mechanism, is described with quoted discussions of the likely reasons for its being hidden by B&N currently. It's a default, barebones Android OS-included web-browser that has not been tuned to the Nook Touch yet. Google searches crash the device, etc.

-- 3a. The Kindle has a music/audio player that can play your mp3's in the background. That includes audiobooks (and specifically also Audible books).
-- 3b. The Nook has no music/audio player.

-- 4a. The Kindle reads personal docs, newspapers, magazines, and books the publisher approves for text-to-speech (tts). It's computerized but better than most computer voices and is useful for times when you have to cook, wash dishes, drive somewhere...
-- 4b. The Nook Simple Touch doesn't have text-to-speech.

-- 5a. You can buy and download books from Amazon while outside the U.S.
The Kindle's 3G cellphone-access web browser is usable in about 60 countries.
Its '3G' Amazon book downloads are available in about 100 countries.
-- 5b. No one outside the U.S. can buy a Barnes & Noble book for the new Nook, not even a traveling U.S. resident. No web browsing is possible ever.

-- 6a. The Kindle can zoom any photo to full screen by clicking in the center of it.
-- 6b. The new Nook Touch can't. Not even maps with small text.

-- 7a. You can switch the Kindle to Landscape mode for regular books and the web.
-- 7b. The new Nook does not have Landscape mode as a feature at all.
It comes only in Portrait mode for reading.

PDFs that can't be read in Landscape mode on a 6" screen are often just not readable. This is important for those hoping to read PDF manuals.

Update2
-- 7c. You can adjust display contrast on PDFs, on a Kindle, important for color 'translations to 16 gray levels, as some colors are so faint as gray levels they're hard to read.
-- 7d. The new Nook has no PDF screen-contrast control. [End of Update2]

Update5 The Nook can 'reflow' text with some PDFs. You won't see the original layout intended, but it'll be readable in that case.

With the Kindle 3, I keep the original PDF and use Landscape mode, Zoom features and Screen-Contrast Adjustment but, if needed, I email a -copy- of the PDF to my Kindle (using [me]@free.kindle.com with the word "Convert" in the subject) and get a Kindle-formatted copy delivered to the Kindle that, unless the page is complex, is readable and uses the usual Kindle features. [End of Update5]

-- 8a. B&N advertises the Nook store has 2 million books but counts the free Google books, which are about 1.2 million.
-- 8b. For the Kindle, a publishing outfit offers Free immediate conversions from Google's ePub to Kindle format always, and we can do it ourselves in about 2-3 minutes w/Calibre and send it to the Kindle or side-load it.

See http://bit.ly/milkbooks for how easy the conversion is, either by the Kindle owner or for free by the small publishing outfit who then puts up a copy of each converted files for anyone to download in Kindle format.

-- 9a. Kindle users can download, directly to the Kindle, over 2 million Kindle-compatible books & docs from Internet Archive also -- either MOBI or text format. Sideloading (transferring books from computer to Kindle via a USB cable) is rarely needed as it is for the Nook.Also downloadable direct to Kindle are another 30,000-40,000 Project Gutenberg books.
Other bookstores with huge mobi book stock are feedbooks.com and manybooks.net.
-- 9b. For non-B&N books, the new Nook's owner must "sideload" other bookstores' books because it has no web browser. It can't directly download them as the Kindle can.

-- 10a. Amazon supports MS Word Doc files. I can highlight sections from several websites, copy/paste them to a Word doc, send the file to Amazon servers and it gets sent to my Kindle via WiFi, converted. It's very useful for work and informational docs.
-- 10b. New Simple Touch Nook e-Ink model does not support WORD doc files.

-- 11a. B&N advertises that the Nook can access all AT&T hotspots and says that the Kindle cannot.
-- 11b. Amazon has always advertised that the Kindle 3 has free access to AT&T hotspots (I used one yesterday at Shattuck Cinemas).

-- 12a. B&N's chart says that library lending is not available for the Kindle but they are aware that Overdrive and Amazon have announced that the Kindle will be able to borrow library books this year with extra features of being able to download direct to Kindle instead of sideloading it to the Nook via a computer, a process that aims to be "seamless" and takes about 60 seconds to do.

Also, the Kindle will save annotations for the borrower in case the person either borrows the book again (if they'd not had time to finish it before it was due back and disappeared from the e-reader) or decides to buy the book.

That's it for now. '

Update3 - If Customer Service is an important factor:As before, I'll mention that interested parties might want to google 'customer service nook barnes' (without the quote marks) if interested in that aspect, or click this link for the general Google search results on Nook customer service.
Here's the same search for 'customer service kindle.'

Update 3a
NO-EBOOK-RETURNS is the policy of B&N for its Nooks, even with bad formatting or missing pages.
EBOOK-RETURNS allowed by Amazon, within 7 days of purchase, usually done for bad formatting, no linked Table of Contents, missing pages, etc.

I'm a NookColor owner who uses the NC daily, by the way, and I enjoy magazines and portable web-browsing on it. But the new Nook E-Ink, for me, skimps far too much re many features I value, although those who prize touchscreen navigation above other features will want the Nook.

Update4 - June 11. Also see the entry on screen contrast - Nook Touch vs Nook 1, with images from a post at Nook forums.

Update6 - Annotations - These are logged with a copy to a 'clippings' file you can edit on a computer and backed up in full to a private, password protected website where it's displayable by book -- good for copy/edit/print.
There's no safety backup or editable file done for the Nook.

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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27 comments:

Yeah, for me Kindle 3G still has more advantages. I recently purchased a Kindle 3G and have taken a number of my self-created EPUBs (using tools such as Atlantis Word Processor and Sigil) and converted them to Mobi using Calibre. I was disappointed in the way they were formated. Indentations were off and some of my custom paragraph headings that had colored backgrounds were completely removed during the conversion process.

Therefore, I still feel the need to own at least one device, whether it be a tablet or an Ebook Reader, that can read EPUBs.

Makes good sense to me. I bought the NookColor partially for that reason though more for color and normal webbing. I love photography and travel sites, so it works well for that. Gorgeous display. But I can't read books on it for long even at only 5% brightness level.

B&N could add a web browser, music player via update. Ditto with landscape mode. They'd be idiots not to have landscape reading mode, it is something you expect with any tablet, and very desirable if you want to use large text sizes on a small screen. But I gather thus far they are idiots .

"B&N could add a web browser, music player via update. Ditto with landscape mode."

Not necessarilly. For a music player, hardware is required. If that hardware isn't present (which wouldn't surprise me as it's got no TTS either) it can't be introduced by a software update.Landscape mode potentially ditto, depending on the technology used (a cheap design might be hardwired to display only in one way and never anything else).Web browser would possibly work, IF the system is designed to allow applications external to teh reader application. If that one's essentially hardcoded into the CPU, you're out of luck and it will never do anything else (in fact can't be updated at all without replacing hardware).

"I keep hoping Kindle will update its 9.7 DX model. I want one that size for reading pdfs primarily."

I do hope Amazon brings a DX4 (let's call it that) later this year using tech that will then be retrofitted into the K3 to make a K4, but I somewhat doubt it.They seem more interested in joining the rush to release a 10" Android tablet and that might well replace the DX in the product lineup.As someone who uses a DX as a general purpose eReader (the smaller models are too small for my poor eyesight, the same reason my father is considering one), it would be a sad day indeed if there were no more large formfactor eReaders out there as reading on a tablet is highly problematic.

I do agree, last week I was looking into finally buying a Kindle, not having bought an e-reader before, when I heard about the new nook. Quickly looking into the differences the pro's didn't count for much for me and the cons where to much of a downside to even consider the nook, especially being from Europe where the nook isn't officially available.

There is one thing that's often not mentioned though, for international customers (and I'm pretty sure US customers when abroad as well) there are some more limitations to the 3G access. You can't browse everything using 3G on the Kindle, I can access amazon and wikipedia, but not google or other websites. You can of course do anything with the browser using WiFi. You also don't have access to Kindle apps here unfortunately. These differences are not well documented as far as I can tell and I didn't realize all of it when I bought the Kindle, though I still feel I've made the right choice and I'm still very happy with the Kindle.

Karin, US Customers travelling outside the US can access free 3G web browsing even in countries where it's not a feature for residents due to telecomm company pricing and agreements.

I do mention what can and cannot be accessed abroad insofar as free 3G web-browsing is concerned. It's quite a mix. See http://bit.ly/kwkweb2.

Your country is probably not one of the 60 or 61 countries that have the free 3G web browsing feature. But Wikipedia is accessible for free 3G (no monthly or hourly data charges), which is a feature no other e-reader or tablet has.

Yes, Kindle apps aren't available outside the U.S., but they have said on the forums that they will be eventually. I hope that's sooner than later!

They don't document the non-US access reliably and I think because it changes. With the free books, that opened up slowly to a few countries outside the US, which in the past had to pay $2 above 'free' and they don't make announcement as all these things shift. They just sort of happen and are considered a bonus, since other e-readers aren't doing it at all, except that the Kobo is able to offer books internationally whereever they are.

> Oh and I think you meant 7 hours a week, not > days right?

Absolutely. Thanks for that correction. I'll change it. It happens to be 7 days but only one hour per day! Thanks again, eagle-eyed one.

Ah yes,you see I didn't know the Netherlands was one of the exceptions. You would expect it here like you say. There has been some debating going on recently about unlimited data plans no longer being available in the future, my mobile provider (T-mobile) does still offer it (with a fair use policy that limits your speed after 2gb) but vodafone, which I believe my kindle uses looking at the box does not.

I was glad to see that free books were really free now!

I'll browse around your site some more, you've got a lot of great info here. Thank you!

You're right. Amazon is far ahead in the features war and its features aren't just bloat. They're genuinely useful. The only real lacks are:

* No native ePub reader, something that may soon be fixed.

* A keyboard that's too small and limited. The Kindle needs Bluetooth keyboard support for those with disabilities and for people like me who have big, clumsy hands. I don't think I'll ever get the hang of that cursor key on my Kindle 3. I keep hitting Back.

* A touch screen might be nice. When I got my Kindle, I found myself wanting to touch the screen like with my iPhone. Scrolling down the screen one line at a time is a pain. That's why I want to see how well the new Nook's touch screen works.

As to the keyboard being too small: for the very few times I use it, it's large enough.Touchscreen would be a major setback, especially if (like on most such devices) it replaces the physical buttons. I've tried using the iPhone Kindle app, and swiping the screen all the time is a major pain, far quicker to just press a button on the side with one finger which is easily within reach when holding the Kindle in your hand.

@jwenting - there's no need to swipe on the iPhone Kindle, just tap on the right or left side of the screen, which has the advantage that _I_ choose where to tap, as I don't find Amazon's choice of position for the buttons on the Kindle itself to be ideal.

I do find navigating through pages of books on the Kindle a little hard work - a touch screen would surely make that process easier.

I see that you mention some facts about the Nook vs Kindle ebookstores in this comparison post. I was wondering if you could elaborate, as I often see claims that the Kindle store has a much better selection of titles than the Nook store, but the assertions are somewhat vague as to what they mean. Here are my specific questions:

1) When counting books, if there are 15 different versions of a classic in a book store, is this counted as 1 or 15?

2) Has anyone tried to measure average quality in a systematic way? I'm finding, with my limited sampling, the following: I've looked at 5 Google books on Barnes and Noble and they have all been terrible. So the free books on BN are worthless, for the most part. Amazon's free books are hit or miss - you have to wade through many versions to find the better ones (that include TOC, no ommitted paragraphs, etc.). However, I'm much more impressed with Barnes and Noble on the paid books. Many of the low cost paid books on Amazon are poorly done uploads of free out-of-copyright books that include no table of contents and sometimes ommitted text - just like the free books. I have so far found all Barnes and Noble paid books to be of uniformly good quality - though I my sampling is limited so far. What is your experience on this?

3) Any other comments beyond the raw numbers about the two different stores versus each other?

The answers to these questions might be interesting enough for you to spawn a new post, if you're so inclined . . .

Andrys, I have been playing with my new Nook STR most of the weekend and thought you'd be interested in the results of an experiment that I have just done:1: I took a screenshot on my Kindle of a typical reading page2: I copied the file over to a screensaver folder I set up on the Nook (multiple, custom screensavers are supported)3: I invoked the custom screensaver on Nook so it displays the Kindle screenshot4: placed Kindle and Nook side-by-side

Result: they look _exactly_, even microscopically the same! I'm going to try to get some good close-up pictures and post them, but not sure when I'll get to it or how well they will reflect what I seems quite evident to my eyes.

This strongly suggests that whatever issues Nook has in displaying 'dark' fonts, it is not hardware related.

As far as I can tell, they are just licensing off-the-shelf fonts without any sort of customization. They also license the rendering engine (Adobe RMSDK). So I'm not sure how much flexibility they have there. However Sony has a feature called 'Adjust Saturation' which appears to allow user to shift the 'greyscale balance' darker or lighter, no doubt to address similar issues (though they only have one built in typeface, it would also help with embedded fonts). If B&N copied that, it would probably help. Otherwise, the smaller text sizes look pretty bad (and a couple of the Nook sizes are smaller than Kindle's smallest size which exaggerates the issues).

Even if they don't, I don't think most people will care (oh, those font Philistines!). I must say, I'm starting to like, maybe even love this thing more and more as I spend time with it. There are some annoying shortcomings, features which work 90% great, but that 10% stands in the way of perfection; I'm not sure B&N has it in them to go there. I'm going to try to do a comprehensive review/comparison on my blog but it might be a couple of days before I can get to it.

Was going to get my wife a Kindle 3 for her birthday. After reading the positive reviews on the Nook touch, I decided to wait for the next Kindle. Touch seems like a real positive to me, especially based on the Nook reviews. But the Amazon book infrastructure is still too big a draw to consider a Nook. BTW, I currently own both a Nook Color (rooted, mainly use as a tablet, and sometimes reader using the Kindle app) and an iPad 2. My wife is a big reader, and E ink would be preferred for both outside use and battery life.

Anonymous,That makes sense if she can wait. CNet's David Carnoy wrote that a "FYI" that he expects the smaller K4 with touchscreen in the 'Fall' or in 'September.'

However, he's the only one who has written about a possible newer Amazon e-Ink e-reader, but it seems most who don't already have e-readers have 'touch' as a primary consideration.

It's possible he's right about it happening, since Amazon bought TouchCo, a company specializing in multi-touch sensitivity technology, over a year ago and nothing's been said about what they're doing.

I have a NookColor too and it's a perfect portable supplement to the K3 for me. Good luck on how it goes!

I did an experiment:1. captured Kindle screenshot2. moved it to a Nook screensavers folder3. invoked the screensaver on Nook. 4. Kindle and Nook now showed the exact same image and direct comparison of contrast etc. is possible

Result: The screens are virtually indistinguishable in terms of contrast, except for very slight yellowish cast to Nook screen (for fingerprint reduction perhaps?)

Seems to suggest Nook's issues with darkness/contrast are not hardware related but rather due ot lack of sufficient font stroke weight and fine tuning for eink screen characteristics (they appear to be stock typefaces, unlike Kindle's which have been tweaked). Nook provides 2 text sizes that are smaller than Kindle's smallest, and it is particularly noticeable there.

Sony has an 'Adjust saturation' feature, no doubt to address such issues (many epub files use embedded fonts so there's no way to do any 'fine tuning' to the fonts themselves). Nook could add such a feature also but I doubt they will. And I doubt many users will complain, especially if they are using sizes in the middle of the range.

For that matter, Amazon could add the feature as well, at least for Topaz books with their embedded fonts.

As far as TouchCo, it is difficult to imagine that would be better than the IR tech that Sony/Nook/Kobo are using.

It's 'resistive-based'. At least in the world of smart phones that has lost out to 'capacitive' tech, which supports 'light touch', whereas resistive is pressure sensitive. Resistive is good when you want more accuracy (using a stylus etc.) but as we see Sony supports light touch and a stylus for drawing pictures or circling words or whatever, and seems to do okay with IR.

So I don't read much into the TouchCo acquisition. As Bezos acknowledged recently in the shareholder meeting, Amazon places a lot of bets, and not all of them work out. And for all we know TouchCo has been reassigned to work on implementing IR for Kindle Touch.

What I felt was that if Amazon bought TouchCo and hasn't disbanded the operation, they have touch screen experts on board over the last 1-1/4 years and I doubt they're uninvolved, whether it's the technology they were working on at the time or whether it's optimizing another touchscreen technology.

I don't think it's hard to read into the fact they have touch screen technology experts in in-house. They're paying salaries.

For me, the font contrast effect is so mediocre on the New Nook (NST) I keep being shocked that some don't notice (but many do and they've written about it and that includes on the B&N forums).

Re the small fonts, talk about useless sizes, I often read on size 1 Kindle font but few do and I think it's foolhardy to go any lower.

What happens with the NST as you must have seen is the ludicrous jump from smaller than medium to a sudden huge font. There are many complaints about that on the forums.

As usual, B&N's engineers do some good design work (though not with the innards or sw of the Nook 1 which was extremely awkward and strangely like operating a lethargic remote control through layers of menus), but B&N rushes it to market.

I can't say that B&N is wrong to do that since most reviewers don't like to really put products through anything but the most cursory trials with the most superficial aspects of an e-reader.

(8Nov2011) Nook STR finally got a software update (1.1). It is all they claim (and less) and fixes most pain points:- text is sharper - significantly quicker- all TOC entries now display (non-hierarchically, but you can navigate to all TOC entries now)- selection of hyphenated words is now possible- apparently sync works better though I haven't tried yet- supposedly better time between charges

On the 'less' side, the mostly useless web browser has been rendered completely inaccessible AFAICT though it must still be there for proxied wifi, facebook/twitter/google registration, etc. and they seem to have replaced one of the PDF zoom levels with a useless reflow mode (with text even smaller than full page PDF view offers).

Of course the price drop (to $99) will help give it a new lease on life.

I think it is disingenuous for them to portray their device as having 'no annoying ads' when the Home screen is essentially a billboard for books that they want to push (which I find 'annoying' to the point that I avoid it), and evidently they still push unsolicited book samples into your Library (though I turn wifi on rarely so cannot attest that they are still doing this). By contrast, Amazon's 'advertisements' include special offers which as many will attest confer added value, far from being unwelcome or 'distracting'. Nook's in-store offers require you to visit a store, which at least for me represents only inconvenience, with uncertain payoff.

And I agree it is still too stripped down. They try to promote this as a virtue, but to me it is more like 'laziness', or lack of vision, or at least reflective of development resources stretched thinly. For example, there's no substantive response to the improvements to library borrowing that Kindle and Sony have made.

Still, the update has made it at least made it much more pleasant to use. Until it was announced, I was thinking in terms of finding someone who wanted to buy it, but I might keep it just as a way of accessing free or discounted B&N books, since selling it now is not likely to recover much of what I paid for it (when refurbs are $79).

Tom,Your interesting note came in JUST while I was typing up some comparisons between Nook Touch and Nook Kindle for the $99 cost, and I specifically complain about the bottom third of books B&N THINK I want that they insist on showing on the Home screen, which, as you say, is more intrusive than any ads by Amazon.

I also don't like my NookColor forever being forced to receive books or samples I have no interest in and becoming part of my library. I have to go to the management page to get rid of them, as we can't delete them on the device.

But I like the NC for everyday portable web use and for my magazines. A lot. It has a beautiful screen. Just not so much for their handling of books. I can't believe I can't zoom an image in my color books when I can in my Kindle ONE !!

Mike Cane did tweet that they removed the back door to the almost useless hidden browser in the Nook Touch. For me, it's not at all competitive with the Kindle Touch. But I definitely will keep my Nook Color, for the books they might have that Amazon doesn't (rare) and for easy reading of non-DRM'd ePub though that has not happened yet.

I've not even used the microSD card. My Nook Tablet/Kindle Fire post is becoming like overgrowth. But I'll finally post it.

Thanks for your info on the changes. Glad they made the font more READABLE for my eyes. That was not good. I don't see that problem in pics of the Kindle Touch, but only an in-person look will give the real picture. I was hoping for image zoom-in.

Did the Nook Touch get zoom in on PDFs recently or were those there all along? I don't have them on NookColor.

Am often away much of the day, and postings won't show up right away. Posts done to use referrer-links may never show up.

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